I know there’s a few people around here who might be able to help with this..


I’m getting the key to my first house today (hurray) but we should have had the keys in early November if it wasn’t for the mortgage company!

Basically they issued us with the mortgage offer everything was going fine and we set a exchange date for the following week. The mortgage company then wouldn’t confirm anything saying they were checking something. It took 3 weeks to get a response to find out if everything was ok and to find out what they were checking. When they did respond it was a letter to say that they had cancelled the mortgage offer. When my solicitor chased it up the basically said that it had been denied on the grounds that the house had a restricted covenant where the house couldn’t be sold for more than 3 times the average wage in a town 20 miles away!! This was something that had not come up on any searches, the current owner had never heard of it. My solicitor said that this must be a mistake and rang the local council who confirmed that there was no such covenant on the property.. She managed to get a answer in half an hour so why did it take them so many weeks!

We informed the mortgage company that there is no such covenant and asked them to reconsider.. after chasing them every day my solicitor had a phone call saying that they had made a mistake and that they had been acting on false information! We then had a letter saying that the offer was still valid due to a 'technology offer' whatever that’s supposed to mean! This was almost 3 weeks after it had been denied and 7 weeks after they originally had a issue with it.

We think they were looking at a house with a similarish street name in a completely different area!

Due to their cockup it has delayed us getting our house by over 2 months, cost me 2, possibly 3 months extra rent and probably a huge bill from my solicitor..

The estate agent keeps saying I should try and get compensation.. I have waiting until we have actually got the house so they don’t withdraw the mortgage offer but would now like to know:

1. After the house is bought could the mortgage company demand there money back if I put a complaint in?

2. Will I have any grounds from compensation and if so what angle should I approach from?

Cheers

Google doesn't say much about it after a reasonable search.The mortgage smallprint may refer to their policy on this.A solicitor would have a clearer idea and whether if it was possible it would affect the current mortgage details.Xman has experience in the legal field I believe.